


Holiday From Real

by orphan_account



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Eating Disorders, Hospitalization, M/M, Nobody commits, Self-Harm, Suicide mentions, general mental illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 21:10:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7861264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where dan gets admitted to hospital and phil is his roommate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holiday From Real

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: self harm, eating disorders, suicide mentions, hospitalizations, nurses/needles/doctors, general mental illness.

he hasn’t been like this his whole life but he’s been like this for all of his significant memories. any of the typical happy memories have been clouded over by something - he’s not sure what it is and he can’t explain it, but it’s a clear feeling.

it’s not that he’s incapable of being happy, more that there’s always an underlying feeling of unreality. like something is just looming in the background, like he’s never truly going to be totally and absolutely happy. 

he’s sick of cloudy. he’s sick of cloudy and unreality, and he wants it to be over. **  
**

the first time he recalls feeling cloudy so clearly is in year four. his mum had signed him up for school band, the percussion section, but upon seeing his sign up, the other four boys had been quick to change to other sections.

dan, as well, took his name off. he didn’t sign up for any more clubs that year, or in the years following.

* * *

he spends his 13th birthday in his own world, sitting at the table as his mum and dad sing to him. his mum spent the entire night before making the cake she’d deemed “dan’s favorite.” he doesn’t care enough for favorites.

his brother is happy enough, because he gets to invite a friend over. dan hadn’t wanted to, not that he was close enough with anyone to invite them over for cake and presents. why would he want to, in the first place?

he goes to bed that night, pushing his mum away when she tries to kiss him. he doesn’t sleep until it’s 2:34 in the morning and his eyes are red, all his tears used up. he sleeps until 4 the next afternoon and his mum doesn’t dare wake him. he appreciates that.

* * *

the cloudiness clears if only slightly when he’s 15 and he has a friend. like, a true, proper friend. he’s called ryan and he’s crystal clear, nothing like the clouded, grey world dan knows.

dan sees the world in him. he sees stars under ryan’s skin, holding him up amongst his heroes. there’s something there, something about ryan that dan can’t put his finger on.

dan is bisexual. he won’t say, he won’t tell his mum or his dad, or his little brother, or his friends, his friends, his friends. not like he has much of anyone to tell.

he confides in ryan, who stares back at him with an expression of the most disgust dan has ever seen.

dan doesn’t see stars in him any longer. he sees hatred. he sees hatred and anger and loathing, and it crumbles him to his inner core.

* * *

he wants to be normal. he wants to be normal and whole. they say he’s depressed and the doctor sends him off with a 20 milligram dose of prozac and dan swears he’s never wanted to die so badly as he does walking out of that stuffy office.

he dutifully takes 2 pills once a day, but instead of the cloudiness going away, it swallows dan whole. when he’s been on this medicine for exactly 23 days he can’t take it anymore.

he’s warm. instinctively, he knows this. his temperature holds at a steady and exact 98.6 degrees, but that day, he’s cold. he’s enveloped in an icy blanket that tells him he’s not enough; he’s not good enough and he’s never going to be enough. his mum and dad don’t love him, he’s not loved he’s not loved he’s not loved and nobody is ever going to love him.

he believes it.

dan’s warm, yes, but that day he takes cold metal to skin that feels much colder, and he feels. he feels like he hasn’t felt for as long as he could remember. it’s addictive.

the marks are small and superficial, made with tacks stolen from bulletin boards or his mum’s discarded razors, but they’re there and they’re evidence that he’s real. he exists.

they take him off prozac because when he’s barely asleep he hears his mum half-sob half-scream “steven you’ve got to come here right now” and his dad comes into his bedroom and dan’s fine, he’s fine he’s fine he’s fine but they see the cuts along his shoulders and his arms and god, he’s not fine and he thinks he could sleep for 17 years but they won’t let him.

instead they drag him back to his fucking psychiatrist and dan knows he said that when he got his medicine, that’s the most he’s ever wanted to die, but that’s not true anymore because he’s fucking fine and he would have been fine if they never saw.

* * *

it’s freezing.

dan’s body holds at a steady 98.6 degrees but he’s been admitted into a fucking behavioral health center and they’ve stripped him down like he’s some sort of display for them.

the nurse’s name is amber and dan wants to scream at her. she’s got a clipboard with the form of a human body on it, making marks accordingly wherever dan has marks on himself and he wants to scream at her to finish already, but he can’t and he doesn’t and his throat is raw, it’s fucking raw.

she finishes and leads him into the hallway and tells him to please sit here and that another nurse will be out to look at him.

he comes and he’s freezing and dan hates him already. he wraps a cuff around dan’s arm, and if it wasn’t for him reading off dan’s heartbeat he wouldn’t be convinced he had one at all.

when he sticks a needle into dan’s arm, he watches the blood flow from his arm, through tubing, into a larger tube, which he caps. he repeats this 4 times and makes dan return to the hallway.

they don’t even have a place for him to sleep because the beds are full and that makes dan feel strangely less alone. he has to sleep on a mat that in a room they call the quiet room and dan doesn’t think he’s ever hated a room so much in his life.

* * *

he doesn’t participate. he doesn’t speak in group therapy. he doesn’t tell his goals in morning therapy. at breakfast time, he sits and stares into an empty bowl of cereal, pushing it around only slightly.

he doesn’t paint during art therapy. when they ask during music therapy what instrument he’d like, he gives a too polite smile and says “none, thanks” and it’s all fake fake fake.

he sits at the table feeling like his insides have crumbled to ash and he’s got rubbery peas and the most pathetic excuse for mac and cheese in front of him and he can’t stomach it, he can’t do it.

he doesn’t want to be defiant. that’s not him. but he can’t do it. he can’t go through the motions of this day. wake up at 7:30. group therapy and goal setting (god, he hates that) at 7:45. breakfast at 8. music therapy at 9 and so on and so forth until they go to bed.

rest assured, they get the privilege of making phone calls home if they’re behaving well, but only 3 days a week and dan’s refusal to eat and his constant picking at his cuts so they won’t go away (god why won’t they stay stay stay he wants them to stay because they’re real) means he isn’t behaving well and so he can’t call home.

it’s only for 5 minutes anyway but he doesn’t want to hear his mum cry about her baby and he doesn’t want to talk to adrian or his dad, he doesn’t want any of it he wants to be home and to sleep and that’s it.

they don’t give him a choice but to eat, putting a bottle of ensure in front of him and telling him he has to eat. he’s locked in a staredown with the nutritionist, kelly, and it takes him 45 minutes to finish the 5 ounce drink and it’s chalky; he feels like he’s going to vomit with every sip.

he can’t vomit, of course. they won’t allow him in the bathroom after meal time and even then, they stand with one foot in the door even though dan screams that that’s an invasion of his privacy and god, why don’t they understand, they never understand.

* * *

they get a fucking pizza party as a reward. a pizza party. and dan would rather bash his head against a wall than eat their pizza and watch their shitty movie.

his cuts have scarred and scabbed over and sure, if he tried hard enough, he might be able to find a way to fashion something to make a weapon, carving words into his delicate skin but he’s tired. he’s tired of waging the war against his own body and he’s tired of being here.

time doesn’t pass here, he’s sure of it. he’s here but not really, none of it’s real.

they tell him that’s his illness talking, but they don’t believe him when he says he’s not fucking ill, for fuck’s sake and they (who is ‘they’, anyway?) decide that they’re going to put him on zoloft.

he goes from a 25 milligram dose to 50 and then 100, and he’s so exhausted but the clouds are clearing if only slightly and that day, he actually manages to stomach the hockey pucks they tried to pass off as pancakes for breakfast.

* * *

on thursday, his mum visits. adrian didn’t want to come and they wouldn’t let him anyway. he’s too young and too impressionable, but his mum is here and that’s something.

she cries and dan can hardly look at her, so he doesn’t. she sobs something unintelligible and dan fights the urge to get up and walk out because that isn’t polite, now is it?

he knows it’s not but he doesn’t care, and he doesn’t speak to her because she’s the one that got him into this situation. and as he storms out of the room twenty one minutes in and thirty nine before she’s due to leave, all he can feel towards her is anger. it’s her fault, after all, he’s here.

“you’ve never cared,” he spits vehemently, and he should care, but he doesn’t.

* * *

he gets a roommate on the sixth tuesday he’s spent there.

he tries talking to dan if only for a moment, but the two go to sleep under fluorescent lights and thin blankets no closer than they were mere hours ago.

it isn’t always like that, though. on one of his better days, one where the clouds and the grey don’t swallow him whole, he gives phil the benefit of the doubt.

phil, who has hollow eyes and carries the weight of the world on his shoulders.

phil, who dan feeds off of.

* * *

he baffles the doctors, who don’t have answers for what’s happened, why he’s slipping back into the grey and the clouds and the fog.

it might be the medicine, the medicine, the medicine, but dan knows it’s not.

phil has hollow eyes and carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, but dan doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone so beautiful.

they sit in their shared room late at night trading stories and scars and acting like old friends, which isn’t something dan is used to, and when he sees phil wake in the morning exhausted and downtrodden, nobody can tell him phil doesn’t have all of the suffering in the world pent up inside of him.

* * *

phil tells him he’s never felt so grey and that he’s not in school and that his brother is a model child, a model child with friends and a girlfriend and a full ride to university and phil is phil, and phil is covered in cigarette burns and phil’s shoulders are heavy and no one understands.

dan spills. about how he’s afraid his little brother will never be the same, about how his mum doesn’t come visit anymore after he ran out, about how his dad never visited in the first place and about how cold the metal felt against his skin and about how deep his hunger pangs had been and it’s fucking horrible.

* * *

“we could fake it,” dan says one day at breakfast. his has two bites and phil’s has none and the nurse is watching them with her hawk eyes and dan hates her, god, he hates her.

“go and talk in group and in goal setting and whatever the fuck else they want us to do so we can go home.”

phil doesn’t answer, just stares down into his bowl and then back at the nurse.

“we could,” dan urges, softer.

“we’re not faking it.” phil’s words are cold and he won’t meet dan’s eyes.

the younger of the two opens his mouth, defense at the tip of his tongue, but he bites it back, stares down and pushes the bowl away from him.

“you’re not,” he corrects finally. “you’re not, but i could. what’s to stop me?”

phil coughs, doesn’t even look at dan. “glad you’re so eager to get away from me,” he says, voice dripping with bitterness. “thank you. really, thank you. it means so much.”

it hurts, each word cutting into dan, wrenching deep into his gut.

“i don’t want to get away from you, i want to get away from-” he breaks off, arms waving in a vague gesture.

“here,” phil finishes.

“yeah, that’s it.”

* * *

“will we ever hang out?” the question poses itself at 1:31 in the morning, two minutes before an aide will come to check on them, and 28 since the last one popped in (they’d both pretended to be deep in sleep).

“come again?” dan asks through the darkness.

“you know, out of here. since you’re so hell bent on leaving?”

dan wants to cut in with an ‘of course i’m hell bent on leaving, and why shouldn’t i be?’ but he doesn’t, just shrugs.

when phil doesn’t answer, he chalks it up to the darkness and his inability to see. right on time, their current aide peeks into the room, a brief sliver of light creeping across the linoleum floor.

and then it’s dark again.

“will we?” phil persists.

“i-” dan mumbles, pulling the cottony blanket over his chest “i… maybe? i’d like to think so but mum might be a bit weird about hospital friends. ‘suppose i could make an excuse, though she might be glad to have me out of the house for once.”

a sigh escapes him, dissipates into the darkness of the room.

“i want to,” he admits. but want and will aren’t the same, and they both know this.

he can tell by the way phil shifts that he wants to answer, but doesn’t.

his roommate, it seems, has decided he’s had enough of the conversation. in 27 minutes, the aide will be back, and he’s exhausted beyond anything he’s ever felt.

* * *

true to his word, to his want to just be out of here (not to be back home, but to be out of this place).

he’s only human, though, and some things stretch his patience thin. he can deal with the different types of therapies, can handle the lack of his phone and of the outside world, but he can’t handle this.

everybody does family sessions, and if your mum or dad won’t come, it’s your older sibling or someone, but dan’s sat in the hard plastic chair across from his parents.

his mum’s eyes are watery, practically ready to spill out and across her cheeks. his dad’s mouth is a hard line, as is usual, and adrian’s whereabouts haven’t been made known to dan.

it’s not a shock, really. first time he’s seen his dad in the - eight, maybe nine weeks he’s been in, and all he’s had to say is how much fucking coursework dan’s going to have when he gets out.

as if he hasn’t thought of that.

“dan,” his psychiatrist coaxes. “you need to work through your issues with mum and dad if you’re expecting to be discharged.”

he doesn’t dignify her with a response, can’t be bothered really. his mum asks too many questions, she’s too vigilant and too detail-oriented, and his dad asks the worst ones, the insensitive ones. dan shoots him a glare and his mum gives him a look that’s the midpoint between disappointed and sad, and he doesn’t care. he doesn’t care that they feel like this because of him, and he doesn’t care about coursework or the expenses or his medicines. he doesn’t care and he never will, mark his words.

“can we be done?” he asks finally, blowing a stray hair away from his forehead. “it’s just this-” he pauses absently, pulling at a string from his sweater, “is doing nothing.”

the psychiatrist doesn’t answer, and the three of them continue to talk as if he’s simply not there, so he acts as if he isn’t, sitting in complete and utter silence until she’s on the brink of being late for her next appointment. he doesn’t say goodbye, doesn’t bother, just heads back out to the group, to the comfort and safety that’s phil, who’s actually speaking to the group.

he feels safest in their room, but they can’t have that right now, so the couches in the group room will have to do for now. he doesn’t mind, not really, but sometimes they get a bit too close and, consequently, get reprimanded for not respecting ‘boundaries’.

phil doesn’t mind the little touches, and dan certainly doesn’t, but what he does mind is every action of his being policed to hell and back, and he just wants to get out.

he’s grey and cloudy, his whole world in a haze, but occasionally he can push through into a less dense fog, and that’s more than he’s been able to say for a long time, so he can’t complain.

* * *

they work around hospital rooms, and dan’s sat on the edge of phil’s bed, only to move when it’s time for the aides to make their rounds. things are actually kind of peaceful. dan holds phil’s arm, lets fingers gently trace over and cover the cigarette burns, and phil does the same to his arms, his shoulders, his legs.

they talk for hours on end, and dan knows it’s morning not by the sky (they don’t have a window), but by how many times the nurses have come in (every half hour) and he’s shocked, completely shocked at how simple things have been.

it couldn’t last. it wasn’t ever always easy and simple, by nature.

it’s phil that breaks the ease, but dan that keeps it going.

“d’you still wanna get out?”

“do you?”

“i asked first.”

“yeah, and i asked second.”

“you’re an asshole. and you didn’t answer,” phil half laughs.

“yeah, i do.”

“well, do you want to go home?” he presses.

“no,” dan says, almost scoffing. “no, i don’t. not at all.”

“where, then?”

“dunno. round somewhere, i guess. haven’t gotten that far.”

“with a friend?”

dan properly, like, actually laughs at that. “no,” he says, finally. “i don’t think so.”

this time, the door opens one more and the aide shoots a disapproving glance, sending dan from his roommate’s bed over towards his own.

“breakfast is in 15, as usual. if you’re not out by then, we leave without you. et cetera,” she drawls. dan knows her well enough, and if he didn’t know better, he’d almost think she was joking.

he’s not even hungry, but just before the 15 minute mark, he plods down the hallway after phil, and they group up at a table after gathering breakfast.

dan’s surprised, still, though he’s been for a few days, that phil’s actually eating. he, on the other hand, has resorted to his weak trick of cutting his food into tiny pieces. it serves a dual purpose; occupying his time, and making the aides think that maybe he’s eating. (they’ve long since stopped falling for it.)

“gonna eat?” phil asks once he’s swallowed. his eyes are bright but he seems weighed down, as is the usual.

“my, uh, they upped my zoloft. a bit nauseous,” dan lies. “think i’ll pass for today.”

it’s a weak argument, but phil’s not in the position to be lecturing dan about his food intake, or lack thereof, and since he’s not obligated, he leaves it at that. dan can’t vocalize how much he appreciates that.

* * *

it’s not quite like phil’s done a total one-eighty but he’s making progress, and while dan’s thrilled for him, he can’t help but be at least slightly jealous. the nurses praise him, and he can’t bring himself to tell dan that they think if he keeps sharing and keeps his behavior up, he might be transferred to the outpatient program by the end of the next coming week. in nine days.

but as the saying goes, ignorance is bliss. phil’s just down enough for dan not to question it, but when he says he’d like to try and improve his relationship with his brother during evening goals, dan nearly believes him,

he can see through phil’s facade, so he thinks. and it’s a brilliant one.

“you’ve given in,” he comments when they’re in the safety of their own bedroom. “to faking it. why?”

phil’s eyes dart up, the boy struggling for an answer. “i’ve got a concert,” he mumbles. “in, uh, two weeks, and i need to be out for it. i can’t not go. and i figure, the way i’ve been doesn’t have me close to going, so might as well fake it.”

it’s a plausible excuse, naturally, and dan accepts it with the hope that maybe they’ll actually be discharged around the same time. maybe this will continue outdoors, sans the twice hourly check ins and the constant reminders of “boundaries, boys!”

* * *

it’s extraordinarily simple, dan’s learned, to go through the motions of a week, wednesday to wednesday, not knowing that your only friend is going to be leaving in two days.

on sunday, he even snaps at phil for questioning him once more about where he’s going to go once he’s discharged, because yeah, phil wants to get out, but to the best of dan’s knowledge they haven’t even told his friend that he’s going to be leaving.

so he lives comfortably, knowing phil’s here for as long as he is, likely longer. the days are nothing special (how could they be?) but they’re not insignificant, either.

thursday is significant. in place of dan’s usual spot on the edge of phil’s bed, piles of neatly folded clothes sit.

when dan questions him, phil quickly offers up a preplanned lie about how he’s heard that they’ve got room checks tomorrow, and dan grins and says “what would i do without you?” as he begins to tidy his own side of the room.

only, the thing is, nobody comes for room checks. they wake up the next morning, trudge to breakfast and back, and still nobody. doubts creep in, but it’s hardly 9:30, and he shouldn’t know about them anyway, so he can’t really ask.

phil didn’t tell him to spare him the hurt, but it’s 11:27 and his pickup is at noon exactly and god, he should have said something earlier.

“i’m going home,” he spits out.

it’s messy and it’s ugly and nowhere near as happy as it should be, but he’s got to say it. he says it over craft paper and the strong scent of school glue, abruptly. but this whole thing was abrupt, he reasons.

“home?” dan asks, eyes wide. “like, in time for your concert?”

phil’s mouth suddenly feels incredibly dry, but dan continues to fill the silence.

“that’s amazing!” he practically coos. “they’ve mentioned it to me once, but nothing recent. wonder if they’ll tell me today.”

“today,” leaves phil’s lips faster than he can process, and he swears he can physically see dan crumble in front of him.

dan wasn’t exactly stoic and solid, but phil can practically see him weaken in front of him, brown eyes going from wide with excitement to horror.

“today?” he asks, hardly audible. in fact, it isn’t to phil. “today?” he asks again, this time marginally louder. “like, tonight, yeah?”

it’s more last minute than he might want, but at least they have lunch and dinner together. he can soak up the few hours they’ve got together, if nothing else. the situation wasn’t quite ideal, but again, nothing about their situation was.

“in, um, god,” phil stammers. “in like, i guess, like, twenty minutes?” he says, like it’s more of a question.

dan lets the glue bottle fall to the floor, the impact of the fall breaking both the bottle and himself. he’ll be in trouble for it, but he doesn’t care.

“oh hell,” he breathes. “oh fucking hell, and you never thought to tell me?”

“i did it to-” phil cuts off. “to like, protect you. i know it’s weak but it’s true.”

“that’s rich,” dan practically snorts. “to protect me. you lied to me to protect me. how heroic. how will i ever repay you?” he says, voice cold and uncaring.

he doesn’t even care to hear an answer, rather runs off to their bedroom. his bedroom now, he supposes. it’s points off his file and days tacked onto his stay, but he’s never cared less about anything in the world. phil comes in maybe three, maybe five, maybe ten or fifteen minutes later, to collect the last of his belongings, offering a final weak apology.

that’s all it boils down to: an “i’m sorry, i shouldn’t have lied,” (even though maybe he didn’t lie, rather stretched the truth to its limits) and a frigid “you should be sorry,” on dan’s part.

he doesn’t get phil’s number and he doesn’t even get discharged for another two and a half, almost three weeks, and the fact that there’s nothing to suggest phil even tried to find him after he got out tells dan all he needs to know.

they met with dan completely shut off, not giving phil the time of day, and had ended in the same way. so perhaps, as one of dan’s few comforts, this was all they were ever meant to have.

**Author's Note:**

> This is purely a work of fiction and the depictions of Dan Howell and Phil Lester are purely fictional. I’m not trying to push an idea onto either of them or say either of them are mentally ill. Furthermore,this is just sort of like, a lowkey all lowercase fic and it’s largely based on personal experience.  
> come say hello on tumblr!  
> kickthepjs.tumblr.com & twinkhowell.tumblr.com  
> kudos/comments greatly appreciated


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